[33girl]

I agree that an event with alums should be part of pledging, as well as activities that help you get to know other members of the greek community. Your sorority is not a vacuum. You will have to work with other groups while you are in college - if you are so antisocial that you don't know anyone in another GLO you won't do a good job.

50 or under sisters, the pledges should (try their hardest to) interview all the sisters....more than 50, the pledges should draw 10-15 names out of a hat and interview them. I think interviews are so important and eliminating them is one of the worst decisions the NPC groups have ever made. Nothing beats one on one contact...you can't make up for that with meetings, philanthropy and mixers. And not everyone is outgoing enough to make their voice heard in a group.

Each pledge should have a "resume" that outlines her basic info and passed out to all the sisters...not everyone is active every semester and I think this would be helpful for sisters who are student teaching or studying abroad, so they know a little bit about these girls when they are active again. We used to also have the sisters interview the pledges, and I was going to say do this, until I realized how doggone sick they must have gotten of answering pretty much the same questions a zillion times.

And for the love of all that's holy, find out about your local history and teach it!!!! Yes, your national history is wonderful and bonds you with 1000's of other sisters across the country, but if it were not for those sisters who began a local, you wouldn't have ever gotten there. This is a pet peeve of mine on websites...if your history page is just a copy of what's on the national site, don't even bother, I'll click on a link.

We had a pledge project also, which was putting together a date party for the sorority (this wasn't that hard) and making something for the house. I think this helps the pledges work together.

I look at pledge programs and it seems like they are either too group focused or too individually driven...you need something in between.